The Dirty Dozen

A famous war film that later saw several weaker imitations. It relies on charismatic actors, skillful direction, and its distinction from other war films of its time. With all due respect to its creators, the "dirty dozen" is merely a highly idealized view of war reality from a film studio. The combat action is naive and exaggerated. If German units were as clueless as depicted, Poland alone would have been enough to defeat them. Combat units similar to the "dirty dozen" were used by all Axis and Allied countries. They typically had lower combat morale but significantly higher brutality, especially on the German and Soviet sides, where they were used for the dirtiest tasks. Overall impression: 50%. (18/05/2007)

A good old war movie where a dozen convicts get the unique chance to escape the noose. The casting is excellent, with Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson in the leading roles. Lots of snappy one-liners and funny situations. I really had great fun watching this. (20/08/2006)

Ingeniously simple subject matter and charismatic actors. That's all it takes to make one of the best classic war films. The action itself is irrelevant here. The strongest passages are the training and the relationships within the unconventional unit. This movie has always been (and will continue to be) widely paraphrased, but probably never again will any of its (un)acknowledged variations achieve such "genre purity". (13/02/2007)